🔗 Share this article

The game developers have an exciting surprise in store for Apex Legends gamers, perfectly timed for festive season. Enthusiasts of the battle royale's highly fluid traversal will be pleased to discover that a new movement mechanic will be introduced when the Amped season launches on Nov. 4.

Introducing The Mantle Boost

Dubbed "Mantle Boosting" by Respawn, this feature provides gamers a surge of forward momentum when scaling ledges and walls. According to lead battle royale designer the design lead, this technique has unofficially been a feature of the game for some time, often called as "mantle jumping." But it's challenging for casual gamers, and is mainly used by pro gamers in competitive play or tournaments. This season, Respawn simplifies the process for everyone to successfully perform these tricky movement boosts.

"Mantle Boosts have been in the game for a while, but the movement requires skill to perform and a player might not realize it's possible without outside knowledge," Canavese states. "Now including a Mantle Boost indicator so players can clearly identify when and how to trigger the fast-paced movement ability, making accessible the feature and adding fresh strategies to compete for a much wider base."

Why Opening Up Advanced Mechanics

Why make a once niche technique available to all players? Principal designer the development lead explains developers aims for players to feel powerful — even those who are inexperienced.

"Our community is doing advanced techniques like super-glides and tap-strafing, and we looked around at other games, looked at what the community execute, and we said, 'What if we provide some of this power to a broader audience?'" the designer clarifies. "Since currently, some of these techniques are kind of janky to use — you need to remap your keybinds and execute within one-frame windows. So we said, 'How about we create a polished implementation?'"

The Amped Update Movement Focus

Movement is largely the name of the game in Season 27, with characters Horizon, Rampart, and Valkyrie receiving enhancements to help keep them mobile. The cooldown period on Horizon's Gravity Lift is shorter, and the Gravity Lift will boost players upward much quicker than it used to. Her defensive walls feature a roof and capability to provide speed boosts to those nearby. But it's the high-flying this Legend receiving the most attention now, with various adjustments applied to make her stronger, faster, and deadlier.

"I think there's quite a consensus that Valkyrie's time is here," states Legend designer the designer. "Certainly she was top-tier in the past, but with the introduction of other characters, mobility perks, and redeployment tools, it seemed like she's not very relevant in today's the game. This presented an ideal chance for us to reexamine multiple elements in her abilities and essentially restore her to former prominence."

Valkyrie's Upgrades

To restore her competitive status in current strategies, Holstead says the team evaluated each of her abilities and introduced significant changes. Her VTOL Jets have been upgraded, increasing her speed while airborne, and the jets themselves regenerates three times faster, allowing the player to remain longer aloft. Now she won't take damage from her own Missile Swarm, which was enhanced to mark opponents who take damage from the missiles. Her squad redeploy skill — which lifts her entire squad skyward for redeployment or retreat — now takes reduced delay to activate. She's also getting recently added Legend Upgrades that users can choose to reduce fuel consumption, expand the spread of her rockets, or accelerate her ultimate activation.

"Valkyrie's equipment fulfills the pilot experience," Holstead says.

Olympus Improvements

Even the game's lone airborne map, Olympus, receives a movement-friendly facelift, with major changes that expands choke points and renders securing elevated positions more manageable. The developers says the game Season 27 focuses on providing gamers the resources they need to keep up with matches.

"Essentially, we examined Apex's fundamental nature as a fast-paced FPS," says principal designer Josh Mohan.

Apex Legends Season 27: Amped launches Nov. 4 at the specified times.